iPad Mini 7 Has These 6 Smaller Changes, Including a Faster USB-C Port

[aka777]

There shouldn’t even be a WiFi only version anymore after going ESim and giving its size and price point. It screams portability.

I suppose it doesn’t support SideCar either right?

Thats exactly why I have and love a Cellular Mini. It’s extremely portable and much larger than any phone.

 

[aka777]

I'm struggling to understand who wants buy an iPad mini Pro. A Pro device is for advanced workflows. Who's doing that on an 8-inch screen?

View attachment 2438341

Apple shows these apps running on iPad Pro: Stage Manager, Final Cut Pro for iPad, Procreate Dreams, Octane X, Logic Pro for iPad, Procreate, Freeform, Morpholio Trace, Photos, Shapr3D.

More ram, a proper CPU, and a 120Hz screen shouldn’t be “Pro”, but that is what I would like. I carry my cellular Mini everywhere as it’s better than any smartphone but still light and portable enough to actually carry.

Apple is obsessed with marketing towards the so-called pro market when in reality, they’re probably not even 0.1% of the user base of anything pro.

It’s always laughable to see them peddling the movie making capabilities of the “pro” iPhones, when prob not even 0.0000001% of users utilize this feature.

 

[The Game 161]

good thing about is future proofing with apple intelligence. hopefully one day we see a pro version.

 

[The Game 161]

Seems it just don’t sell well. Maybe this will be the last one.

it won't as the next one will be OLED.

 

[The Game 161]

I'm struggling to understand who wants buy an iPad mini Pro. A Pro device is for advanced workflows. Who's doing that on an 8-inch screen?

View attachment 2438341

Apple shows these apps running on iPad Pro: Stage Manager, Final Cut Pro for iPad, Procreate Dreams, Octane X, Logic Pro for iPad, Procreate, Freeform, Morpholio Trace, Photos, Shapr3D.

stage manager and 120hz i think would be an added bonus. even a device with 120hz would be a win going forward

 

[majkom]

No face id, no 120hz, no buy, again

 

[3304614]

Kind of surprised at the A17 Pro. Which lead to me to believe iPhone SE may actually come with A17 instead of A18.

And even the mini has 10Gbps USB-C while iPhone 16 is stuck with UsB 2.0

There has never been an “A17”. There is only the “A17 Pro”. (There isn’t a non-Pro version of that chip.)

For the iPhone SE to be compatible with Apple Intelligence, (of the existing A-series chips) it would need to have an A17 Pro, A18 or A18 Pro.

 

[ksec]

There has never been an “A17”. There is only the “A17 Pro”. (There isn’t a non-Pro version of that chip.)

For the iPhone SE to be compatible with Apple Intelligence, (of the existing A-series chips) it would need to have an A17 Pro, A18 or A18 Pro.

My bad. It does seems strange to use Pro SoC in Lower range products. Especially they decide to use that instead of the cheaper A18.

 

[Razorpit]

They must have a bunch of binned A17 Pros sitting around. My best guess, this version will be around for as long as the Binned supply remains. Once that’s gone mini 8 will be announced. Kind of like the iPad 3 debacle in regards to timeframe of the iPad 4 release. iPad 3 owners got hosed big time.

 

[jchap]

I find it inconvenient and even a bit appalling that I spent all that money on an Apple Pencil 1 and 2 for previous iPad mini models, and now the iPad mini 7 isn't even compatible with them. Every new iPad mini model seems to require a new kind of pencil.

Apple will not be seeing my money this time.

 

[MacFarmer]

So

• Old binned chip
• AI that you may or may not even want
• And you have to buy a new pencil -- good if you'd like to use the Pro Pencil though

More RAM is the only real upgrade here in my view

you can look at it this way:
* fixed jelly scroll (hopefully)
* twice the storage
* usbc

I don't think anything else needed for small ebook reader. Ah, faceID would be nice!

 

[Hoo Doo Dude]

And no price increase.

 

[t2jd1967]

I tend to agree with this general thought, but I will say that since I don’t use Safari or Apple Mail, it’s kind of incredible how cross platform I have become without even thinking about it.

Also, in the past having messaging everywhere used to be a major feature for me, but I have found messages coming in all the time to be such a detriment to productivity and focus that I have really started to restrict that and try to keep it basically on my phone or Mac only

Translation… On the tablet, my usage patterns and preferences are pretty different than my phone and my Mac for whatever reason

I think it depends a lot on whether you embrace or avoid Google services. I tend to do the latter and am happy to stick all my stuff in Apple's basket and avoid Google unless absolutely necessary. I use YouTube to store video recording shots that I can share and very seldom use Google for anything else.

 

[JPack]

The manufacturing run for the chips for the 15 Pros is done and they know how many chips with a defective GPU were produced. It was likely high since chips for the 15 Pros were produced when the process was brand new and sales volumes of iPhone Pros is at least an order of magnitude higher than it would be for the iPad Mini. Do you think they threw away chips that they had the potential to bin for future use and now that the process is more mature with better yield they are producing binned chips on purpose? Your arguments make no sense.

Of course they are binned, why else would the A17 they are putting in the iPad Mini have one fewer graphics core than the A17 that was in the 15 Pros? You think they just omitted that graphics core for no reason? It’s actually a smart business plan from the perspective of saving on production costs. They know the defect rate on graphics cores during the manufacture of the A17 Pro (i.e. they weren’t unexpected) and they know how well the iPad Mini sells. Given the lower volume of the iPad Mini (compared to iPhone Pro models) and the lower yields (higher defect rate) of N3B it all seems pretty logical.

They must have a bunch of binned A17 Pros sitting around. My best guess, this version will be around for as long as the Binned supply remains. Once that’s gone mini 8 will be announced. Kind of like the iPad 3 debacle in regards to timeframe of the iPad 4 release. iPad 3 owners got hosed big time.

So

• Old binned chip
• AI that you may or may not even want
• And you have to buy a new pencil -- good if you'd like to use the Pro Pencil though

More RAM is the only real upgrade here in my view

Confirmed by iFixit these are not old binned chips, but rather newly fabbed chips.

A17 Pro on iPad mini 7 has fab date of 2428, or July 2024.




A17 Pro on iPhone 15 Pro Max has fab date of 2331, or July 2023.


If you understand the business aspect of chip manufacturing, this would have been obvious. Apple can't simply hope and pray the defect rate for A17 Pro matches exactly the demand for iPad mini 7. It makes zero sense.

 

[Razorpit]

Confirmed by iFixit these are not old binned chips, but rather newly fabbed chips.

A17 Pro on iPad mini 7 has fab date of 2428, or July 2024.

View attachment 2442238


A17 Pro on iPhone 15 Pro Max has fab date of 2331, or July 2023.
View attachment 2442235

If you understand the business aspect of chip manufacturing, this would have been obvious. Apple can't simply hope and pray the defect rate for A17 Pro matches exactly the demand for iPad mini 7. It makes zero sense.

Wouldn’t have been the first time something like this has happened or been rumored to have happened. if you understand how accountants run things, you’d know binning does happen.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-apple-tv-reportedly-equipped-with-binned-a15-chip-with-5-core-cpu.2370200/

 

[JPack]

Wouldn’t have been the first time something like this has happened or been rumored to have happened. if you understand how accountants run things, you’d know binning does happen.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-apple-tv-reportedly-equipped-with-binned-a15-chip-with-5-core-cpu.2370200/

"Reportedly"

Again, there's no indication Apple TV uses a binned chip other than opinion. Apple can elect to produce a lower CPU/GPU variant simply to increase A15 yields. We saw this with A12X.